Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Yay! It's 2007! And since tradition holds that everyone make a New Year's resolution, I have a resolution for everyone!

Stop the hillbillyization of the English language.

While I know that I'm not the paragon of correct pronunciation, I at least make an attempt at it. I'm not trying to lambaste one region of the world over another, since everyone is allowed to have their local dialect, but you would think that a dictionary would stick to their guns.

At a New Year's party my friends and I were talking about pet peeves. We started talking about colloquialisms, how people would say things in our area and things we've overheard. This eventually led to someone getting on the computer and looking words up.

I was amazed that Merriam-Webster's dictionary, had kowtowed to the majority and started putting in pronunciations like, worsh for wash, man-aze for mayonnaise, and ag for egg.

Making this sentence a possibility (at least phonetically.)

I'm going to worsh me an ag far the man-aze.

This brings me to the next words on the hit list:formiliar for familiarohl for oilandpellow for pillow.

But there is some hope out there. Dictionary.com, has not bowed beneath the lead weight of apathy.

So everyone's resolution is simple, learn to pronounce one word correctly. I suggest mayonnaise. They put those letters in there for a reason.